Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[CKPR]

If you're 'modelling a model railway' , you'll need some source material ! I've always  liked this classic C.J.Freezer style branch line from the early 1970s complete with its reworked Triang Super 4 track.

Edited June 19, 2020 by CKPR

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

here's an an aerial view to show you how Seaton looks, the Railway comes down from the far top LH corner, the line of small bushes alongside the river, and the station site is the pale patch just short of where the main road curves round to cross the river. The town centre is coming towards you in the foreground.

 

Thanks Mr Northroader.  The aerial photo does give me a good idea of the shape of the landscape, but I can't say that I like what they've done with the place. 

5 hours ago, Northroader said:

The town centre is coming towards you in the foreground......

That sounds like an an awful nightmare.  Hideous modern houses moaning and banging their doors as they lurch across the landscape despoiling all before them.

It's a typical post 1970s landscape though with a town that has a scar where its railway was cruelly demolished and it's now of a size where a railway would be very useful to its population.

 

My version of Seaton inexplicably has a bridge for fiddle yard for hiding purposes (red line on map) which means I have already committed crimes against the landscape.  The lovely 25 inch to the mile coloured 1889 OS map I'm using (price 4/-) shows green fields beside the station with the town at a distance from the station.  So I'm more than a little tempted to call my layout Seaton Road. and be done with it. (I won't though.)

However I may be able to find some more open and rural backscenes and largely get rid of the trees along the back of the layout altogether which would make things a lot more plausible.  That combined with the coastal seascape backscene I've already found should just about do it  provided I ignore the absence of the gasworks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

6 hours ago, CKPR said:

If you're 'modelling a model railway' , you'll need some source material ! I've always  liked this classic C.J.Freezer style branch line from the early 1970s complete with its reworked Triang Super 4 track.

Thanks for this article and plan Mr CKPR .  It certainly will be useful as a reference.  It is however the post 1935 station after the Southern Railway completely rebuilt the station and the yard. - though I never could understand why they built a picture theatre at the end of the station platform.

[Annie]

I'm happier with this as the main backscene, but I may need to so some odd bits to it to get it to fit together properly as well as remove some distant power pylons.  The backscene behind the station still needs work, but I'm too tired to do anything about it today.

 

[Edwardian]

Very good, and I do like your passengers.

[Annie]

Thanks very much James.

 

This is my latest mad project.  'O' gauge tinplate for Trainz.  The points are a bit tricky to install and require strange and arcane knowledge known only by  the Ancient Ones of Trainz to get them to work properly, but after a lot of trials and a lot of errors I was able to do it.

 

 

[Annie]

A little interlude.

 

 

[Annie]

Yet more doings with my tinplate 'O' gauge project; - seeing if i can make a faux clockwork engine in Trainz.  I've removed the smoke and steam files from the test engine and fitted it up with a silent engine sound file.  I would prefer a sound file of a clockwork engine in motion since they tend to make quite a distinctive sound.  I'll do something about adding a keyhole in the tankside later on once I have the engine running how I want it to.

 

 

[MikeOxon]

It needs some Axminster carpet underneath, breakneck speed at the start and then the slow down to a crawl at the end!  My experience of clockwork 0-gauge was limited to the simplest No. 20 Hornby models on 1 foot radius curves so perhaps my expectations are set very low.

[Annie]

The more expensive clockwork models with good quality governors could maintain a more steady speed Mike.  I had a pre-war Bassett Lowke 4-4-0 tender engine that had a nice steady clockwork mech; - had to be sold when life happened unfortunately.

 

But carpet, - YES! - that is just the thing and thank you for that.  I shall have to go away and do some experiments.

[Jake The Rat]

This is by far the strangest idea I have seen in this thread so far, but somehow I like it. 

When I was a child, my first ever loco was a clockwork H0 gauge all black 0-6-0 tender engine of unknown origin.

Electricity wasn't yet invented back then.

 

Last night I've been working on toying around with a 1-baseboard route designed to model a model railway, named Rhye on Sea. I like the layout, except for the goods yard in the middle of it. Either it's the work of a genius & I'm too stupid to understand how it might work, or it's a total disfunctional mess. Anyway, I'll rebuild it...

Afterwards I'll probably return to Ashburton, unless it gets hotter than 25°C, then I'll prefer my cold & snowy Canadian layout, where the ice hockey stadium is twice the size of the railway station.

 

[Annie]

Yes I know it's a bit strange Jake.  I used to be seriously into old tinplate trains at one time and I had quite the collection.  I had to sell off most of it when life happened and i can't do layout building anymore due to this illness I have so I'm finding the TMR format to be a lot of fun and it's allowing me to build the kind of model railway layouts I used to see in Plan of the Month in Railway Modeller back in the day.  Really it's just a step further on from that to experiment with attempting to build a tinplate train layout.  It might not work out, but at least I gave it a go.

 

Rhye on Sea is interesting.  Very much in the C.J. Freezer mode with lots of tracks running everywhere in a small space. (Yes I went and downloaded it to have a look at it).  I haven't really had a proper look at it yet, - just flew around over it with Sparrowcam, - so I can't really comment on the goods yard as yet.

I find that during our Summer I tend to run the Winter layouts I have installed a lot more so you're not alone in that.

[Annie]

17 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

It needs some Axminster carpet underneath

 

First test tryout of the carpet.  I need to adjust the normal mapping a bit, but the texture itself is fine.

 

[Jake The Rat]

Now I know what an Axminster carpet looks like. (Almost everyday I learn something new here, not only about railway.) & it's in LMS crimson, very nice...

 

[MikeOxon]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

 

First test tryout of the carpet.  I need to adjust the normal mapping a bit, but the texture itself is fine.

 

Looks very good.  Next we need the tight oval track for the train to tail-chase around

[Annie]

27 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

 

Looks very good.  Next we need the tight oval track for the train to tail-chase around

Unfortunately that tinplate track isn't very good at forming tight radius curves Mike.  It tends to want to kink if pushed towards forming anything like a typical trainset curve and even attempting 2ft radius curves is pretty much out of the question.

Back in TS2004 days a small number of content creators made a few assets for representing 'O' gauge trains.  Mostly it was based on 'O' gauge Lionel, but it seems that very few Trainz folk were interested in the idea and nothing more was made.

 

I've made a small beginning with a making a clockwork sound file.  I've got it to the point where there is an audible sound when my test engine is in motion, but now I need to edit and refine the sound file as well as making it respond to the engine's speed.

[Annie]

I took a break from making and fixing things and played trains for a while on one of the first layouts I built up back when I was using TS2009 as my digital trainset.  Last year I moved the layout into TS2012 and tidied up a few things, but it's still essentially my old layout and it's as much fun to drive trains on as it was back then.

 

 

 

[Jake The Rat]

17 hours ago, Annie said:

 

 

Valleyfields?  (Or one of the many variations like Milbourn James etc. etc.)

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

 

Valleyfields?  (Or one of the many variations like Milbourn James etc. etc.)

A one third slice cut out of  'A Moment in Time' <KUID:506910:1052>  actually Jake.  

'A Moment in Time' is a huge TS2009 layout which to my mind did a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the Uk countryside. Era would be about 1950s-1960s.  I loved it and ran trains all over it for hundreds of hours.  I'd only just purchased TS2009 and this was my first real sight of what was possible in Trainz.

 

It had some problems though, - it had three strange digital knots in it where the coding that held it all together had created instant crash zones where everything would freeze up if I so much as looked in that direction.  Usually these kinds of faults are caused by a group of faulty models being grouped close together and the only way to find them is to delete everything in the area of the fault until it stops; - which tends to completely ruin a layout somewhat. 

 

With it being such a big layout though and having a number of alternative routes to get around it I was able to avoid these, but it wasn't really a good situation.  I did a lot of work on a 'Moment in Time' with generally refining things and taking it back to the1930s and I used to refer to it as the 'HUGE Uk Layout'.  It was this layout was where I learned about using the surveyor tools in Trainz and how to build layouts.  So I learned an awful lot from it.

 

When I purchased TS2012 I took 'A Moment in Time' across to the new version of Trainz , but realising that I only ran trains on about a third of it, - which was the part that I'd done most of the rebuilding work on, - I deleted the rest of it and it became 'The Not So HUGE Uk Layout'.  Doing that also got rid of the three horrible digital knots as well which was a good thing and the layout became a lot more fun to operate.  The layout started out being nominally LNER/GWR, but is now GWR/SR.

 

I'd been neglecting this old layout for months while I worked on my GER Norfolk layout and it was only over the past couple of days when i wanted to take a break from building and fixing things that I returned to it and rediscovered that it was still a lot of fun to play trains on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Annie
added picture

[Annie]

I found this old Trainz model of a GWR 'Metro' tank engine.  It's a strange little thing and in some ways quite tinplate train like in its appearance.  In fact it most probably will eventually go to my 'O' gauge tinplate project.

Anyway I dug out my three 'litho' GWR 6 wheel clerestories and took No.615 out for a run on  'The Not So HUGE Uk Layout'.  It runs very nicely too.

 

The modern error platforms have since been changed for proper pre-grouping ones at this station (Debton).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Jake The Rat]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

A one third slice cut out of  'A Moment in Time' <KUID:506910:1052>  actually Jake.  

'A Moment in Time' is a huge TS2009 layout which to my mind did a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the Uk countryside. Era would be about 1950s-1960s.  I loved it and ran trains all over it for hundreds of hours.  I'd only just purchased TS2009 and this was my first real sight of what was possible in Trainz.

 

It had some problems though, - it had three strange digital knots in it where the coding that held it all together had created instant crash zones where everything would freeze up if I so much as looked in that direction.  Usually these kinds of faults are caused by a group of faulty models being grouped close together and the only way to find them is to delete everything in the area of the fault until it stops; - which tends to completely ruin a layout somewhat. 

 

With it being such a big layout though and having a number of alternative routes to get around it I was able to avoid these, but it wasn't really a good situation.  I did a lot of work on a 'Moment in Time' with generally refining things and taking it back to the1930s and I used to refer to it as the 'HUGE Uk Layout'.  It was this layout was where I learned about using the surveyor tools in Trainz and how to build layouts.  So I learned an awful lot from it.

 

When I purchased TS2012 I took 'A Moment in Time' across to the new version of Trainz , but realising that I only ran trains on about a third of it, - which was the part that I'd done most of the rebuilding work on, - I deleted the rest of it and it became 'The Not So HUGE Uk Layout'.  Doing that also got rid of the three horrible digital knots as well which was a good thing and the layout became a lot more fun to operate.  The layout started out being nominally LNER/GWR, but is now GWR/SR.

 

I'd been neglecting this old layout for months while I worked on my GER Norfolk layout and it was only over the past couple of days when i wanted to take a break from building and fixing things that I returned to it and rediscovered that it was still a lot of fun to play trains on.

 

 

I downloaded this layout a few month ago after you mentioned it in this thread. I have never seen a route where I didn't want to change anything, & this was no exception, so I rebuilt Potterton Station (the main terminus) & edited some other things, & then my interest turned to something else...

A 100-baseboards-layout like this makes for a nice change after the 1-baseboard-layout Rhye on Sea. (The rebuild of the goods yard is almost done, & though I'm not sure if my version is better than the original, it's definitely different, & larger. I'll get back to this soon... )

So I set up one of my favourite locos & a rake of GWR coaches & took a ride...

(I haven't found these 3 problem spots yet, where are they?)

 

Trainz2009 was where it started for me. It was given away for free in summer 2018, & before that I didn't know much about railway & next to nothing about British railway. (Flying Scotsman? Never heard of. Maybe a ship? Or a plane?  ) 

I started with a German winter layout, & then I explored what else there was in stock & found British railway much more complex & interesting than German. In the last 2 years I have read a lot on the internet & even a few books, & today I am a German steam railway enthusiast whose railway knowledge is 95% British & 99% in English language.   Of course there is much more to learn, on history as well as on modelling...

Last year I bought T:ANE, but found it too demanding for my mediocre (at best) GPU, so I bought Trainz2012, & that's what I use most of the time.

[Annie]

I no longer have an original copy of 'A Moment in Time' so I'm downloading it again so I can find the three trouble spots where the digital knots live and take screenshots of them.

 

I made plenty of changes to goods yards and MPDs as well as making changes at some station. A few bridges were changed  to make the big river navigable and the towns saw a fair bit of rebuilding.  Overall though it was the landscape that attracted me and held my interest.

 

While I have done some modelling of New Zealand railways somehow it was the railways of Britain that captured my interest the most.  The history, rivalries and interrelationships between  the railway companies during the pre-grouping era is something I find fascinating.  And then there are the wonderful locomotive and coach liveries and the different kinds of architecture that were unique to each company.

 

I own both TANE and TS2019, but I don't use them much.  My computer runs both of them well enough, but I find them to be more complicated than I want in a railway simulator. 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Annie
fumble brain

[Annie]

Fenton, Watertop and Knewtonmore, - that's where the digital knots reside.

 

Fenton.  Somewhere amongst the buildings in the middle of screenshot lies the problem.  Trains passing along the lines from the big station (behind camera) or passing the smaller station will sometimes trigger a freeze up and crash.  Occasionally it will be just a sharp hesitation and the simulator will recover.

Because I was going to rebuild the area anyway I started to systematically delete everything in an effort to find the problem.  Often just pointing the mouse cursor in the direction of the digital knot would trigger a crash.  In the end I just cleared the whole area and that got rid of it.

 

 

Watertop.  The digital knot is round about where the houses are against the side of the station platform.  It was really hard to get rid of since taking the mouse cursor anywhere near it would cause a crash.

 

 

Knewtonmore:  The problem seemed to be with the station, the interactive invisible platform and the tracks joined onto it.  It was impossible to drive a train past the station without causing a freeze and crash.  From memory I didn't have any problems killing off this one.

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

Three snaps from a test run I did on 'A Moment in Time' for old time's sake.  The coastal parts of this huge layout were always favourites of mine.

It was interesting to see it again in its 'out of the box' state and not quite so interesting to see the things that got swiftly put right like the utterly terrible signalling.  It's a big layout and it must've taken its creator ages to do.  He said in his description notes that it was the first part of a very large project, but he never uploaded anything else so I've always wondered what happened to stop him from doing that.

 

 

 

[Player of trains]

Hello Annie, I’ve followed the Big UK layout ever since you started posting it on NGRM and it’s fascinating to see the bare bones layout again. How many different parts ended up getting added to it over time? I recall you added a 3ft line at some time and the custom stock for the Grand Navigation company has proved to be a bit of inspiration for my own Isle. Thanks for posting in these threads as they’re all lovely reads (especially the Kotanga Tramway)